I built this bench during the winter time and gave it to a charity auction that was held last Saturday. The bench turned out nice and it sold for a whooping 750.00 dollars. I was surprised.
That's a win win. Someone gets a beautiful hand crafted wood bench and the money raised goes to a good cause. Nice work!
Please tell us a little more about the bench. What type of wood did you used and did you mill it yourself.
The wood came from standing dead lodge pole pine. It was beetle kill. I cut it in 4 foot rounds so I could load it in my truck to get it home. Yes I did mill it with a chain saw and sanded it down with a belt sander and orbital sander. The sides are two pieces glued together. The wood is all cut to about 2 inches thick and the pieces glued and screwed together. I cut the plugs from the same wood to fill in all the screw holes. I put 4 coats of minwax spar urethane on it to protect it from the weather. All the cracks were glued and clamped to keep it strong.
That live edge stuff is pretty popular right now. A buddy had a single slab, 12' live edge bar top made from a 3'+ diameter white pine. The tree had blown down a few years ago in a wind storm on his family homestead farm where we hunt.
I'm not familiar with lodgepole pine. It looks like the sap wood is darker than the heartwood. That certainly makes for some interesting finish details/choices.
I would like to see a pictorial on something like that from start to finish. You did a beautiful job. Anybody come up and talk to you about making something for themselves?
No takers on building anything else. Lots of lookers though. If I build another I will take some pics from start to finish including the logs.
This pine is beetle kill that leaves a grey blueish stain at the outer edges of the wood. When you stain it as I did then you get this darker brown color. Other wise the pine would pretty much be all the same color.
